‘L/stone council’s inadequacies will cost MMD in 2011’

‘L/stone council’s inadequacies will cost MMD in 2011’
By Edwin Mbulo in Livingstone
Sun 27 June 2010, 03:10 CAT

LIVINGSTONE Taxis and Minibus Operators chairperson Paul Sensele has said the inadequacies of the council will cost the MMD the 2011 elections.

In an interview on Friday, Sensele said that the MMD must learn from the mistakes made by Livingstone member of parliament Sakwiba Sikota who had supported the MMD.

“The Livingstone City Council will cost the MMD the 2010 elections if they go ahead with the proposed levies of taxis and minibus operators paying three months in advance. We are able to fight, we can fight and the MMD needs to make sure that they tame Dras Neves town clerk because she is making the MMD unpopular,” he said.

He added that he was the biggest transport operator in the tourist capital and challenged Neves to push for his suspension from the MMD.

“I only wonder why the council had to engage the drivers who are our workers to make decisions on our behalf, the owners, of the vehicles. I challenge the town clerk to publish a list of operators and their fleet numbers when she had discussions to effect the levies. My fleet number is LK 20,” he said.
Sensele added that Neves should not intimidate taxi operators at the expense of the MMD.

“We know that issues of markets are political. We are a market as transport operators and what we are saying is that let us meet somewhere and make a change instead of cadres. I’m not an animal that can be termed and I shall not be pushed. If she wants let her have the MMD suspend me,” he said.

And Sensele said that the government was not being fair to Livingstone city by continuing to suspend the council.

“The council is and we all know has a lot of problems but the more they keep Dras Neves alone and being dictatorial, we shall see a lot of people losing. She has already reshuffled a lot of officers all because they refuse to be her bootlickers,” he said.
But Livingstone City Council public relations officer Emmanuel Sikanyika has stated that the council was trying to streamline the operations at bus stations in the city.

“Management toured all major minibus and taxi ranks and engaged drivers on how best the council levies should be paid as most operators were in more than three months arrears,” he stated.

Sikanyika added that the council was already proceeding with the idea of opening up more ranks to decongest the current ones.